The Narcissus Complex: Patrick Cash peers into the psyche of the stereotypical self-obsessed gay male.
Narcissus was the epitome of Grecian beauty. Young and strong, magnificent of body, a countenance akin to the sculpture of Michelangelo’s David, he had never seen his own face – so the myth goes – until he caught sight of his reflection in a pool, and fell instantly in love. As he languished there, besotted, the nymph Echo, cursed to forever repeat others’ words, developed a passion for this beautiful youth before her and attempted speaking with him.
Yet she only repeated his own words back at him, providing him the illusion that his reflection was talking to him. Although the reflection would say nothing that he did not say himself this only strengthened Narcissus’ ardour, and he pined away at the poolside ‘till, depending on which version of the myth you read, he either drowned in the pool attempting to reach his love, or metamorphosed through his unrequited feelings into the Narcissus flower.
This myth has inspired a vast range of treatments in its telling from the Roman literature of Ovid to the surrealist paintings of Salvador Dali, but it is through the twentieth century’s most famous psychoanalyst, Sigmund Freud, that we find a relation of it to the modern gay scene within which we operate. Freud identified a complex which he termed ‘narcissism’; that of excessive obsession with the self, at the expense of others who, at the extremes of the psychoses, will themselves become mere objects in the afflicted subject’s eyes, extensions of their own self, rather than separate people in their own right.
Of course, it would be a slightly unhealthy, and palpably untrue, statement to accuse the whole gay scene of thinking in this manner, but there seem to be enough figures on it exhibiting symptoms – from the benign to the rampant – of the Narcissus Complex for the subject to become choice discussion matter.
A slight and perhaps amusing example of narcissism might be someone checking their reflection in the mirror more often than is absolutely necessary; a sin almost all of us will be guilty of at some point. More worrying and anti-social behaviour would include: the use of pathological lying or ‘magical thinking’ (indulging in verbal distortion or illusion to more fit the external world to their own skewed internal views); deliberately and consistently belittling others to enhance their own sense of superiority; contributing only to social conversations what may advance themselves; ruthlessly exploiting others without remorse or thought for their feelings.
So in love with themselves are narcissists that they harbour an inability to process feelings like shame in healthy ways, leading the psychotherapist Sandy Hotchkiss to identify that they instead project it onto the people nearest them. Ultimately they are inherently unable to see the sad hollowness revolving at their own core.
Image by Gordon Johnson from Pixabay
But as well as ‘destructive’ or unhealthy narcissism, psychologists are all agreed that a certain amount of healthy narcissism is necessary to develop a balanced psyche. Some will have more than others obviously, but its features include a high self-confidence in line with reality, a potential enjoyment of power, a real concern for others and their ideas, and an ability to follow through on plans. It is when a person crosses over into the unrealistic side of these concepts that the problems begin.
Freud identified a complex which he termed ‘narcissism’; that of excessive obsession with the self.
Most problems with narcissism are thought, like other psychological flaws, to begin at childhood, but research has suggested that an environment such as the gay scene, supported by its overriding obsession with youth, and coming onto it too young is the perfect place to foster what has been termed ‘Acquired Situational Narcissism’. A particularly good-looking eighteen year old boy with a bit of natural charm can achieve the trappings almost of a celebrity on the scene, worshipped by older men, lusted after by all, elevated to a higher status by virtue of the most arbitrary of his attributes: his age. Endowed with a higher sense of his worth by this treatment, the early stages of narcissism instigate themselves, and, as he gets older and achieves slightly less of this smitten treatment in the bars and clubs, the feelings of narcissism in paradox climb ever higher and less touched by reality.
Psychologists in the USA have recently identified a link between the huge rise in social networking in recent years and substantially more cases of narcissism appearing across the country. And is this not the most pertinent aspect of the gay scene within which the narcissist’s psyche can be identified? Who’s ever had a conversation with someone who appears to be more interested in their iPhone; or all those guys on dating sites and all those status updates on Facebook, bring them ultimately back to the thing that concerns them most: themselves.
And, then, they’ll look up suddenly and complain that they can’t find a boyfriend.
